


Come To Light

by littledaybreaker



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Ghost Joel?????, Ghost Sarah, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29096928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledaybreaker/pseuds/littledaybreaker
Summary: "She was alive, she knew, because she felt so completely, totally alone.And for what? She'd let Abby go, but even if she hadn't, Joel would still be dead and Dina would still be gone. She could have killed Abby a hundred different times in a hundred different ways and it wouldn't have changed those facts."or, Ellie goes home after her confrontation with Abby because she doesn't know where else to go, but after a crisis brings her and Dina together again, they try to pick up the pieces of what they once had. Can they make it work?
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	1. The Thought of You Keeps Me Warm

**Author's Note:**

> This is a baby behemoth in two parts, inspired by "Come to Light" by Arkells (in particularly the acoustic version found on the Campfire Songs album, but any version will do if you choose to listen along). It is also my first fanwork for the Last of Us fandom, so gentle comments/criticisms are always welcome. I took a few artistic liberties, but nothing that requires any significant explanation that I can think of. I choose to take certain parts of the end to mean that reunion was possible, and this is my way of doing so. Originally I wanted this to be a long sort of slow-burny thing, but I am desperately bad at slow-burning anything. Ask my wife.
> 
> Oh and I randomly gave Jesse's dad the first man name I thought of because he didn't have one. He is Scott now.

_ Silence fell as I picked up and those words hit me hard like a one-two punch _

_ I went home to face the storm and the thought of you keeps me warm.  _

Without any consideration of anything else, Ellie began to head north. 

Night was beginning to fall when she finally made the decision, the air holding a chill, but it didn’t seem to register to her. Nothing did, really; she realized as she began to walk out of the city that for the first time in all of her memories that she felt absolutely nothing at all--like she was detached from herself, floating away. Like maybe she’d died back there on the boat and her spirit was making its way back to Wyoming without her. That was a pervasive enough thought that she wanted to go back and check--was sure that if she did, she’d see herself laying on the floor of the boat in a pool of blood, the way she’d seen so many other people in the course of her life ( _ How many?  _ She wondered, and was dismayed to think that she couldn’t even count them all, couldn’t even begin to give a rounded estimate to herself). But even if she was dead, she couldn’t risk losing all that time, so she kept walking.

As the hours stretched into themselves, long and distorted, the city growing smaller and smaller and the night becoming darker and colder, she began to come back into herself. She was alive, she knew, because she felt so completely, totally alone. 

And for what? She'd let Abby go, but even if she hadn't, Joel would still be dead and Dina would still be gone. She could have killed Abby a hundred different times in a hundred different ways and it wouldn't have changed those facts. The weight of this thought struck her deeply for the first time, and she ached with regret. For as hard as things were, if she'd stayed at the farm, she'd still have had Dina, still have had JJ. Her family, the people she belonged with. People she was acutely aware now she would never see again. 

The woods were quiet, her head was spinning, and she tucked herself against a tree, taking off her backpack to use as a pillow, laying down on the ground and letting herself cry quietly until she was exhausted.

She dreamed of JJ, except he wasn't a baby anymore. He was a little boy, with long wild hair, and he was climbing up big bales of hay on the farm, jumping across them. "Mom, watch me," he kept saying, and over and over Ellie did, until she heard Dina calling her in the kitchen and turned her head for a split second, only to turn back a second later to find him gone, waking up with tears streaming down her face and sticks stuck in her hair. The woods were still quiet and dark, and she got up quickly. Better to get moving before there was too much activity, she reasoned. 

The rest of California passed by in what seemed like an endless blur of days; most of them quiet. If there was activity (either Infected or otherwise), it must have been mostly in the cities, because she saw virtually nothing and nobody for days on end. It reminded her, bleakly, of her early days of traveling with Joel, except there was no Joel to keep her company, to tell her stories (or to tell stories to). There was nothing but her own thoughts, her own memories, and it was almost crushing in its way. 

By the time she reached Ely, she'd resorted to singing and talking to herself to pass the time. If she thought too much about it, she could almost hear Joel answering, somehow. 

She was midway through telling invisible Joel a story about the horses that was going absolutely nowhere when she stumbled upon the town kind of by accident. 

"Respectfully," said a voice (while a gun cocked  _ very  _ disrespectfully), "where the fuck do you think you're going and who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" 

Ellie had the good hand on her own gun, the other in the air as she tried to figure out where the voice was coming from. "I--Wyoming? Myself?" she answered, like an idiot. 

From the shadows, a woman appeared. "You're a long fuckin way from Wyoming," she said skeptically. 

Ellie regarded her, both hands in the air even though the woman had put her gun down. She looked normal, thank God. No weird face shit going on. "No shit," she said softly. 

"Where'd you come from, Wyoming?" the woman asked. 

"California," Ellie answered, squinting at the woman. She was somewhere between 30 and 50, but it was hard to tell. She was thin, her face hard worn. "You a Firefly?" she asked cautiously. 

The woman laughed. "Fuck no. We're our own people out here, Wyoming." 

_ That doesn't tend to end well,  _ Ellie thought, but then again, it had worked out just fine for her and Dina. "My name's Ellie," she said dumbly. 

"Sarah. How long you been out here, Ellie?"

"I stopped counting after four days." 

"You must be hungry."

Ellie considered. She hadn't been until Sarah mentioned it. "Yeah." 

"Gonna come in, or are you gonna stand out there getting sunburnt all day, Ellie from Wyoming?" 

Ellie considered. Sarah's gun was still sitting on the porch. Ellie's own still had plenty of ammo. Her knife was in her pocket. She went inside. 

The inside of Sarah's house was cool and dark and clean, and it reminded Ellie of the farm in a way, but it also dimly reminded her of Bill's Town, in a way that made her chest hurt. Sarah brought her a glass of water and a sandwich and she downed them both. "Easy," she said warmly. "What brought you out here?"

Ellie shrugged. "Unfinished business."

Sarah gave her a look. "Did you finish it?" she asked, putting a bag of chips in front of her. "Slow, Ellie from Wyoming. Don't make yourself sick." 

Ellie already had half the chips in her mouth, and she swallowed them, shaking her head. "Couldn't." 

"Sometimes things are better left unfinished," Sarah said thoughtfully. 

"Wasn't gonna bring my dad back," Ellie mumbled into the bag of chips. It felt weird--how naturally calling Joel her dad came. She swallowed hard. "Do you have any more water?" 

Sarah brought her another glass, and she drank this one slower. "It's another 6 or so days to Wyoming, depending on where you're going. You've probably done the hardest part already. Someone waiting for you at home?" 

Ellie's mind flashed briefly to Dina and JJ, to some silly daydreamy idea that they could somehow be there still. "I have a girlfriend--" she began, but her throat got flooded with tears and she shook her head. "No. Just time to go home." 

Sarah didn't push it, just nodded, rested a hand on Ellie's back. "Well listen. You can stay here tonight, rest up. There's a safe house at the north edge of town where you can gather up supplies. You're gonna wanna be real careful. West Wendover's full of Infected, but you probably know pretty much everything beyond that, yeah?" 

Ellie nodded. 

"Good. Then you're set. Go get some sleep, Wyoming Ellie. You're gonna need it."

She dreamed of Joel that night, but it wasn't a nightmare. "I'm proud of you, baby girl," he told her. "I love you. You did the right thing." When he hugged her she swore she could feel it and woke up smiling. 

Sarah was gone when she woke up, with no note or explanation, which sent a frisson of panic through her ( _ that isn't fair _ , the reasonable part of Ellie's brain said,  _ she doesn't know anything about you _ ). But there was a blanket and a bag of food sitting on the counter, and Ellie grabbed it, tucking it into her backpack before slipping out of the house and heading north. 

It was weird--Sarah had said 'we', but Ely seemed almost entirely abandoned, the few buildings that existed all dilapidated and falling down. It made Ellie nervous; had she been tricked into a setup somehow? 

But the safe house was there, on the far north edge of town where Sarah had said it would be. There was a man sitting on the porch when Ellie approached, and Ellie put her hand on her gun. The man looked at her, looked at her bad hand, and looked back at her. "Stop being stupid," he said, and waved her in. 

Inside was cool and dark, the same as Sarah’s house, except it was full of every kind of weapon and ammo and thing to make weapons and ammo and first aid kits imaginable. 

“Take whatever you need, but getting stock is hard so try not to be greedy,” the man said, sounding kind of bored. “Where’d you come from?”

“Sarah’s house.” The man was giving her a weird look. “Uh, California, before that.” Ellie started picking things up off the table: ammunition for her guns, a handgun, stuff for treating wounds. 

“Who the fuck is Sarah?”

Ellie looked up. “The lady in the house?” 

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Nobody out here but me.”

Ellie’s stomach flipped, but when she started loading up her backpack, the blanket and the bag of food were still there, so that part was at least real. “I--she--” 

“Never mind,” the man said, “I don’t care, so long as she doesn’t come and rob me, which she hasn’t yet. Lemme see that hand.” He grabbed at Ellie’s bad hand before she had a chance to say no, examining it. “The fuck happened here?” 

Ellie pulled her hand away. “Nothing,” she said sharply. 

“Don’t look like nothing, sasspot,” he replied, letting her take her hand back. “Anyway, where you going now?”

Ellie shrugged. “Wyoming. Where I’m from.” 

“You’re a long way from home.” 

Ellie shifted her weight from one foot to the other, shrugged. “Guess so.”

“Well,” said the man. “You’re gonna want to stay away from the towns as much as possible with your hand like that. Take this.” He handed her some more ammo. “Keep your head down. You’re gonna be okay, kid.” He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and Ellie didn’t know why she felt like crying. 

She spent most of that day’s walk contemplating Sarah’s existence and where she’d come from. “Did you send her?” she asked invisible Joel, and was almost angry when he didn’t answer. 

Night in the desert was a lot colder than it had been in California, and it was harder to find cover, but she made herself a makeshift tent out of a tree and a rock, and she was grateful for the blanket--wherever it had come from.

That was the first night she dreamt of Dina, in more than just snippets. Dreamt of her arms around her, her kisses and touches, and woke up trembling, gasping for breath. It was before dawn, but she packed up her little camp and set off into the cool dark. 

The rest of the days were a blur; unbearably hot days and cold nights. It was long and lonely, and Ellie couldn’t suppress her longing for home, for the quiet and the routines of the farm. She passed the time as she had on the first half of the journey: talking to imaginary Joel (and sometimes, now, imaginary Dina) and singing, doing anything to make herself feel less alone. 

It almost felt like a surprise when she started to recognize the landscape the closer she got to home, almost felt like a surprise when her feet led her up the familiar terrain to the farmhouse. 

It was empty, of course. The hope that it would be anything other than empty had been misguided and childish, and she’d known that. All of Dina and JJ’s things were gone, like she’d expected, but some of her own were still there. It made her chest hurt. It didn’t feel like home without them, but where else could she go? 

That night, she tried to sleep in the bed in the house, and tossed and turned for hours before finally giving up and moving her things into the barn. She half-hoped that at least the horses would still be there; but that had been an equally silly hope. If Dina had left, why would she have kept them? Still, her heart ached for them, and she cried herself into fitful, dreamless sleep over everything she’d lost. 

When she woke up, she was momentarily confused as to where she was, but eventually oriented herself, remembering. Her head ached a little, but she chalked it up to the crying, and she picked up her guitar (pointless--her hand was still useless) before climbing down the ladder and out into the warmth of the day. She briefly flirted with the idea of going into town, trying to track down Dina, but she knew better. Instead, she’d go try to hunt some small animals for food and then find something to keep herself busy, to somehow make the day pass. 

And somehow it did. The process of hunting and skinning and preparing the animals to eat took awhile, and then by the time she’d built a fire and cooked it was getting dark. Her head still hurt, and even with the fire she was having a hard time staying warm, so she climbed back into the loft of the barn, piled blankets around herself, and tried to sleep. 

She awoke several times through the night, pain seeming to light up every single cell of her body, desperate for water. When she did sleep, her dreams were strange, fractured, and felt so real she woke up convinced they were. Not that she stayed awake long--even opening her eyes felt like a monumental effort, and it didn’t hurt when she was asleep. So mostly, she slept. 

_ Two days later _

In her room at Jesse’s parents house, Dina awoke with a start from a dream she couldn’t quite recall. The clock on the wall read 4:38. In his crib, JJ was still sleeping peacefully. 

She got up and looked down at him, smoothed a lock of hair off his forehead, leaned down and kissed him. The thought she’d woken up with was still front and center in her mind:  _ I need to get back to the farm. There’s something wrong on the farm.  _

She had been back a time or two since Ellie had left, to check things over and make sure that it hadn’t been taken over, but she’d never felt such a strong pull, such an incredible sense of something wrong, and it frightened her. She leaned down and kissed JJ again and then got dressed, her heart pounding in her chest all the while. 

Downstairs she scrawled a quick note to Jesse’s parents, explaining where she’d gone and why and then slipped out of the house and into the crisp early morning air, heading toward the farm without stopping. 

At first everything looked okay. Her cursory glance around the house didn’t reveal anything strange, but her second, more thorough look made her freeze. Someone had been in there. Shit. She stalked through the house quietly, slowly, glad she hadn’t brought JJ. But whoever had been in the house was gone now, and Dina let out her breath.

She checked the little buildings and the chicken coops and, aside from the tamped-out fire, nothing. Steeling herself, she headed into the barn. 

The lower level of the barn was empty, but as she investigated, she could hear  _ something  _ from the loft. Whimpering? She nearly put away her gun, but reminded herself that it could have been a trap, and kept it drawn as she headed up the ladder. 

She wasn’t sure what she had expected to see at the top--worst case, an ambush. Best case, some newly Infected looking for a place to hide, weak enough that one good shot could kill them. Whatever it was, it was not  _ Ellie,  _ curled up in a little nest of blankets, face white, moaning fitfully in her sleep. 

“Ellie?” she asked, and then when there was no response: “ _ Ellie!” _

Ellie had dreamed of Dina so many times over the last 48 hours that hearing her call her name barely registered. This time, she was standing across a huge canyon, and Ellie was on the other side, trying to find something with which to build a bridge. Everything she found so far had kept falling in, no matter if it looked long enough or not. But this time Dina’s voice sounded strange, distant, like it was coming from somewhere beyond the dream. Ellie opened her eyes to see Dina standing over her, concerned.

“I’m not Infected,” she said, sitting up. 

“I know that, stupid,” Dina said, kneeling down. “Fuck, Ellie, you’re burning, we’ve gotta get you into town.”

“I have immunity,” Ellie added, and then promptly threw up all over her.

“Fuck,” Dina said softly, taking off her jacket. “Ellie, stay here, I’m gonna go get the truck.”

Ellie barely had the strength to do anything but flop back down into the nest of hay and blankets she’d made for herself, so she simply nodded, already half asleep. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dina cursed, all the way back down the ladder as fast as her legs could go, back out to the edge of the farm and to the truck. It wasn’t fair to be angry with Ellie, she told herself. Not for going to the farm, not for not looking her up, not for any of it, but there was a twinge of anger anyway, especially with Ellie in the state she was in. She drove the truck right up to the door of the barn, and then reconsidered, backing it straight in. Getting Ellie down the ladder would be a big enough challenge. 

Ellie was once again basically unconscious when Dina climbed back up, and she shook her awake. “Listen. I just need you awake long enough to get down the ladder and into the truck, okay? Then you can sleep as long as you want. I’m gonna take you back to Jesse’s parents’ house, they’ll--they’ll know what to do, okay?”

“Gonna be mad at me,” Ellie said, letting herself be led toward the ladder.

Dina climbed partway down, hands on Ellie’s waist to guide her. “No one’s gonna be mad, 

El,” she assured her. “Come on down, that’s it.” Once Ellie was down the ladder and in the truck, Dina went back up into the loft to grab a blanket, wrapping her up in it while Ellie faded back into sleep. 

Robin was in the kitchen when she heard the truck pull in, and she got to her feet as the door opened, ready to tell Dina off, except that when Dina came in, she was dragging what looked to be Ellie’s corpse behind her. “I need help,” Dina said, “Ellie needs help,” and Robin rushed over to take her and bring her over to the couch. “I found her in the barn, she’s burning up, she threw up all over me, she won’t stay awake, Robin, I don’t know what to do.” Dina’s eyes were wild and full of tears, brushing Ellie’s bangs off her forehead fruitlessly. “You have to help her, Robin, please, I know that--”

“Dina,” Robin said gently, putting a hand on her back. “Scott knows someone in the next county who can come look at her, okay? We’re not going to let anything happen to her.”

Dina looked from Ellie (who was moaning a little in her sleep again) back to Robin, tears still shining in her eyes. “Promise?” she asked. 

Robin hugged her tight. “Of course. Keep her comfortable. I’ll be back, I’ll take JJ.” 

Ellie awoke maybe 30 minutes later with a start, waving her arms and nearly tumbling off the couch. “Where the fuck am I?” she asked, not even addressing Dina in particular. “I need water, help, please.”

Dina had been perched on the edge of the couch, watching her sleep, and she handed her a glass of water, which Ellie downed in one mouthful, gagged (but didn’t throw up, thankfully, though Dina had made sure she was out of vomiting range), and then asked for more, which Dina dutifully brought her before explaining that she’d found her in the barn and brought her back to Robin and Scott’s, which is where they were now. 

Ellie scooted so she was sitting up a little more, sipping this glass of water a little slower. “I don’t think I should be here,” she said uncertainly. 

“Robin went to get you a doctor...or somebody.” Dina hadn’t actually bothered to find out if the person was a doctor or not, come to think of it. 

“I feel better?” Ellie said, although it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself. Dina reached over, feeling her forehead with the back of her hand. “Your fever broke,” she said dubiously, “But I think you should stay, ba--El, no one’s mad, please just, you’re really sick, I…” she hesitated, and then reached over, drawing Ellie into her arms. “Please just stay.”

Ellie wilted a little, letting herself go limp in Dina’s arms, and Dina kissed the top of her head. 

Ellie was asleep again by the time Robin returned with the doctor, curled up with her head in Dina's lap, Dina playing with her hair. She stirred a little when Dina looked up but did not wake. "Her fever broke when you were gone," she reported, "But she feels warm again." 

"Do you know what happened?" the doctor asked, and Dina gently moved Ellie onto the couch proper to allow the doctor a better look at her, which made her stir, open one eye, and then curl up tighter. 

"I found her in the barn at our old farm," Dina explained. "I dunno how long she was there, she got sick on me, she's, uh, she's not Infected," she added quickly. 

"Of course," the doctor agreed, but not before giving Dina a strange look, looking Ellie over.

"Ellie," he said, "My name is Charlie and I'm here to help you, can you talk to me for a minute?" 

Dina shook Ellie's shoulder until she opened her eyes, offering her a glass of water, which she drank, helping her to sit up. 

"Ellie," said the doctor, "can you tell me what happened?"

She closed her eyes briefly, trying to remember, and then told them about how she'd cried herself to sleep and then woken up with a headache, and then the night after that couldn't get warm and her stomach had hurt, and then she'd just slept and slept like that until Dina found her. 

The doctor listened, nodded, prodded at her a bit, asked her where it hurt and frowned when she indicated. "Appendicitis seems like the most likely culprit," he said after a moment's consideration. "We have a field hospital set up at the old elementary school in Wilson, but we need to get her out there soon. If it starts going septic, everything goes south." 

Dina looked over at Ellie, knowing that the prospect of a surgery probably didn't sit particularly well with her. 

"What do you think?" she asked. 

Ellie considered, worrying the blanket between her fingers. "Don't leave me there alone?" she asked, voice small. 

It was a double-edged sword, Dina knew, but they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. For the moment, she took Ellie's hand--her bad hand--and held it in her own. "I'm not going to leave you there," she promised. 

Satisfied with that, she turned her attention to the doctor. "And it's just the appendix? That's it?"

Not for the first time, the doctor gave Dina a strange look, but he nodded. "Just the appendix." 

"Fine," Ellie agreed. "Let's go." 

With her fever broken, Ellie did seem better (although the doctor had warned them that this meant that things were all the more critical) and on the way to Wilson she told Dina about her trip home, curiously not mentioning Abby or anything that had happened in Santa Barbara at all, a fact Dina wasn't sure how to process, for better or worse. 

She was hesitant when they pulled up to the field hospital, seemingly trying to shrink into the seat of the truck, looking back at the road they'd just come down, and Dina grabbed her shoulders. "Hey," she said, forcing her to make eye contact. "It's going to be okay, you know? You need this to get better." 

"Yeah," Ellie agreed, hesitant. "I know." 

"I--" Dina began. "I want you to get better, El. I want you around. I  _ missed  _ you." 

Ellie looked down. "I...I missed you, Dina. I'm gonna do it. For you." 

Charlie was waiting for them with a wheelchair (which Ellie declined until Dina insisted) when they arrived. He led them into the building, pointing Dina into what was once the gym but was now the waiting room. "This is your final stop for now," he told her. "This usually takes about an hour or so, but the anaesthetic takes another forty five minutes or so. I'll send someone down to get you once Ellie is awake." Ellie waved, and Dina blew her a kiss as she was wheeled down the hallway and into a neighboring classroom. 

She barely registered what was being said as they explained the basics of the surgery, although she did manage a joke ("add it to my collection," gesturing to her other scars, when they mentioned that she'd have a 3-4 inch scar from the surgery), with only one question as they put the mask with the anaesthetic over her face: "I'll be okay? I'll wake up?" 

"Good as new," the woman holding the mask promised. "Count backwards from ten." 

Ellie only made it to eight before everything went dark. 

When she woke up, she was in a different room, and she could see the sun setting through the window. There was an incredible pain in her stomach, her mouth was dry, and Dina was dozing in a nearby chair. 

"Dina," she said as urgently as she could muster, "I don't think they did it right."

Dina opened her eyes, looking at Ellie with a great deal of sleepy confusion. "El, what the hell are you talking about?"

"The surgery. I think they did it wrong, it still really hurts." 

Dina reached over and took her hand, running her thumb over the back tenderly. "Babe," she said, "I want you to really think about that for a sec." 

Ellie did. "Oh," she said after a long moment. "The cutting open. Right." 

And then she was asleep again. 

When she woke up again, there was midmorning sun shining through the windows and Charlie was standing at the foot of the bed with a clipboard. On reflex, Ellie reached out to Dina, who took her hand. "Let me have a look at that," Charlie said, examining the incision. "Everything went really well. You'll need a couple weeks to heal, just keep everything clean and take it easy but you shouldn't have any more issues. You got here just in time, it wasn't gonna hold much longer, you were hours from sepsis and that's a very different animal. But you're free to go home now. Dina has something to help you a little with pain, but we don't have much."

Ellie thanked him, and once he was gone, Dina held up her backpack. "I'll help you up," she said. "Swing your legs over." Once she was up, they made their slow, shuffly way out of the makeshift hospital and back out to the truck, neither of them speaking. They were halfway back to Jackson before anyone did, and it was Dina who broke the silence. 

"You can stay with us at Robin and Scott's. I went back while you were sleeping and we got the downstairs bedroom set up." 

Ellie picked at her sleeve. "Thank you," she said softly. 

"It doesn't mean anything," Dina added, gripping the steering wheel hard. "I wasn't gonna leave you to die, and I can't leave you alone now, that's all."

Ellie's jaw clenched and released the way it did when she was trying not to cry, and Dina stared straight ahead, pretending not to notice. "I know," Ellie said quietly. "Thank you." 

"Yeah."

Robin was waiting for them when they arrived back at the house, and she fussed over getting Ellie comfortable in the bedroom, which allowed Dina to sneak away, knowing that she'd fucked up. She didn't go far, though, sitting in the dining room with JJ in her lap, half-heartedly offering him little metal cars to play with while she listened to Robin and Ellie's voices, although she couldn't make out anything specific. 

"I don't owe her anything," she told the top of JJ's head. "She left us. I did the right thing, J." 

"Ma," said JJ, tossing a car on the ground and laughing. 

After JJ's nap, though, Dina brought him down to Ellie's room, knocking on the door. When there was no answer, she opened the door, finding her asleep. "Let's wake her up," she whispered, gently setting JJ in the bed with Ellie. "Watch her owie, bud." 

JJ squealed in delight, crawling up and immediately going for Ellie's ears. Ellie startled awake, but smiled sleepily when she realized, wrapping her arms around the baby and kissing his cheeks. "Potato, hi, I missed you," she said sleepily. "You're getting to be such a big little Potato." Nuzzling into the crook of his neck, whispering: "Oh, I love you so much." 

Dina felt her heart leap a little. She'd missed this more than she'd care to admit, these tiny, joyful moments. 

Things had not been perfect on the farm, Dina knew. But was it entirely fair to blame Ellie, when so many of the things that had happened were things that were wildly out of her control, and when she'd tried so hard for them? And now she'd found her way back;  _ fought  _ her way back, really, on the brink of death, and surely that was not nothing, right? 

She stood at the side of the bed for a long moment, watching, and then took a deep breath. "Scoot," she instructed, climbing in to join them, kissing the side of Ellie's head and reaching for her hand. "El," she said, "If you're up for it, will you tell me about California?" 


	2. The Things That Hurt Today Will Begin To Fade Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wherein Dina and Ellie try to create a new beginning for themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this could have gone in so many different directions, and indeed it did, through several different rewrites, but in the end I decided to just give them a straight shot at happiness this time because they deserved it, but it's a concept I want to explore in a couple of different ways, and I plan on doing so again in the future. 
> 
> I would ultimately like to explore what happens with Tommy in a few different ways, but he needs to work out his own anger in his own ways first, and this is Dina and Ellie's story, not Tommy's. 
> 
> I hate writing endings always, so I ultimately decided to just end this and yeet it into the void before I started hating the whole thing.

_ When everything went wrong, you’re keeping my head on _

_ And in time, the things that hurt today will begin to fade away. _

For the first few days that Ellie was there, Dina stayed upstairs in her own room at night, although she spent most of the day downstairs with Ellie, who was a  _ terrible  _ sick person, constantly trying to do too many things. Dina had caught her more than once trying to get JJ into the sling on her back to go on a walk with her. But for the most part they’d fallen into a quiet little routine during the days.

Ellie was determined to learn to play the guitar again, picking it up several times a day even though it only served to frustrate her, and sometimes she was quiet and sad--more than once, Dina had walked into the room and found her with tears rolling down her face, unable to articulate exactly why--but there were more good moments than bad. Something had shifted in Ellie, and she felt like parts of her that had been gone a long time were slowly coming back. 

On the sixth night after Ellie’s surgery, Dina came down after putting JJ to bed to sit at the end of her bed. Ellie was sitting up in bed, doodling, and she looked up shyly at Dina when she came in. “Hey,” she said softly. “I was wondering if you could help me with, uh, something.” 

“Sure,” Dina said easily, voice warm. “What’s up?”

“I, ah.” Color rose on Ellie’s cheeks. “Was wondering if you could help me take a bath? Help me with my hair cause it kinda hurts to lift my arms and I keep pulling my stitches?”

Dina’s own cheeks felt hot and she couldn’t quite figure out why, but she nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’ll go get it ready.” She had to suppress the overwhelming desire to kiss Ellie on the forehead as she rose to get the bath ready, fussing over the water temperature and trying to find the fluffiest towels. She felt strangely shy, giddy in a way that she hadn’t since the night of the dance, as if she was on the cusp of some turning point. 

She tried to play it cool, standing with her hip cocked against the bedroom door, but she was grinning like an idiot at the way Ellie's hair looked in the lamplight, so she was pretty sure it was pointless. "Hey," she said, "Ready?" 

Ellie looked up at her, smiling, and swung her legs over the side of the bed maybe a little too fast--she winced, but tried to play it off. Dina decided it was in her best interests to pretend not to notice, although she wrapped her arm around Ellie's waist to lead her to the bath. 

Even if it was silly, she turned away while Ellie got undressed, turning back around only once she was done to help her get into the tub. Color rose on her cheeks at the sight of her naked. She was thinner than she'd been before she'd left, even, all her softness gone to sharp edges, but there were hints of it that still remained at the curve of her waist, her breasts, that caught Dina's breath. "You're so beautiful," she said, wrapping her arms around Ellie's waist to help her into the tub. 

Ellie leaned her head back, resting it on Dina's shoulder, pressing a feather-light kiss to Dina's jaw. "Oh yeah? Even with this thing?" gesturing to her incision, with its angry surrounding bruise. 

"Mm." Dina lowered her into the tub, gently pouring water over her body. Her hands were shaking too much to pretend this was strictly business even if she hadn't returned the kiss. "It's not the first." 

"Probably not the last, either." Ellie leaned back, tilting her head back. "Mm, feels good." 

"Temperature's okay?" Dina asked, picking up the soap, sliding soap-slick hands over Ellie's body. 

Ellie nodded, humming pleasurably. "You don't have to do that, y'know," she said, though the breathless edge to her voice suggested it wasn't really a complaint.

"I know." Dina pressed a kiss to her shoulder as she rinsed the soap off. "But I want to. Let me take care of you." 

"I'm not very good at that," Ellie mumbled, eyes closed, and Dina smiled, her mind drifting to so many nights prior. 

"I dunno," she said, picking up the pitcher off the floor, filling it with water to wash Ellie's hair. "I seem to remember that differently." 

The flush that spread across Ellie's chest was  _ very  _ satisfying indeed. 

After her bath, Dina helped her into a clean shirt and pair of underwear and combed out her hair ("You just lost two fingers and your entire appendix, stop complaining," she said when Ellie protested), and then eased her into bed.

"Stay," Ellie said, reaching for her, catching the hem of her t-shirt. "Don't go back upstairs." 

Dina hesitated, but it was fleeting, and soon she was crawling in next to her, curling her body around Ellie's. 

The next morning, she had Scott bring JJ's crib downstairs, and that was the last time her room upstairs ever got used. 

Still, she was hesitant to put a name on it, to make anything official--Ellie had had good days before, good weeks, even, but something always seemed to put an end to it, send her spiralling back into her inner darkness. It felt safer this way, safer not to put a name to it, to cling to some semblance of self-preservation despite Ellie's anxiety about it.

"I'm not gonna leave you," Dina promised. 

"So tell me I'm yours," Ellie pleaded. 

"I'm not ready yet," Dina said uncertainly. "Not yet." 

"When?"

Dina kissed her forehead. "I dunno yet, but I'm not going anywhere." 

And then Tommy showed up. 

"Heard you found Abby in California," he said, by way of greeting.

Ellie was sitting on the porch swing with JJ in her lap, basking in the warm mid-afternoon sun. On instinct, she turned to look for Dina, but she was in the house somewhere, way too far away. "You told me to," she pointed out. 

"Heard she's still alive out there," Tommy added, his voice measured, cool and calm. 

It was then that Ellie noticed the gun holstered on his hip. She hugged JJ a little closer. "Could be," she replied. 

Just as casually as could be, Tommy's hand drifted toward the gun. Ellie drew in a sharp breath. "You wasted all that time," Tommy said, his voice low. “And for what, Ellie? You coulda done something meaningful, and instead you let her go. He woulda given up everything for you, and you wouldn’t even do one fuckin thing for him.” For the first time, Ellie could smell the alcohol on him. She was afraid, terribly afraid, but she didn't let it paralyze her. She held JJ, stroked his hair. "Killing her wasn't gonna bring him back, Tommy," she said, surprised at how strong her voice was. “I’m sorry I thought it was. I’m sorry I didn’t--I’m sorry you feel like I failed him. But you can’t expect some angry fucked up kid who misses her dad to make all the right choices all the fucking time, but you also can’t tell me that he wouldn’t be proud of me for the ones that I did make.” 

Tommy reached for the gun, but Ellie was faster. "Sorry, Tato," she whispered, moving him quickly to the safety of the ground so she charge at Tommy, just as Dina came out of the house. "What the fuck is going on here?" 

"She attacked me," Tommy insisted, but Ellie got to her feet, hands in the air.

"He was gonna shoot me." Picking up JJ, who had begun to cry. 

Dina's eyes fell on the gun, and she glared. "Get out," she commanded. "Get the fuck out." 

Tommy got to his feet, backing slowly away. "Fine," he agreed, "But I better never hear you call my brother your father again, you bitch," he said to Ellie. 

"Fine," Ellie agreed, a soothing hand on the back of JJ's head, bouncing him on her hip. "Don't come near me again and you won't have to." 

Once he was gone, Dina gathered both Ellie and JJ into her arms. Ellie was shaking a little, but when she finally spoke, her tone sounded exhilarated. "Holy shit," she said breathlessly, "I can't believe I did that." 

Dina kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, babe, you fucking did that." and then, more cautiously: "are you okay?" 

"Yeah." Ellie nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. Let's go back in the house, though. I think we're done out here."

That night, Dina reached for Ellie in the dark and kissed her shoulder until she turned around, and they made love for the first time, slow and gentle, tender, sweet touches as though they were afraid the other was going to disappear, and when they were finished, Dina drew Ellie into her arms, whispering into her hair, over and over: "Mine, mine mine mine mine mine." 

"Yours," Ellie whispered back. "Forever and always, yours." 

They didn’t talk about it the next morning, but at the breakfast table Dina sat pressed as close to Ellie as she could and Ellie couldn’t stop smiling. Robin gave them a knowing look, but even she didn’t say anything.

The rest of the morning passed just like that; neither of them speaking about it but both of them wanting to be in each other’s presence, neither wanting (or able) to be too far from the other, as if compelled by some invisible force. Every cell of Ellie’s body was radiating with it, but she was afraid to break the spell, afraid that if she spoke, all the magic would dissipate and they would be right back where they had started. 

It was Dina who cracked first, after she put JJ down for his nap. She almost seemed shy when she stuck her head into the living room, where Ellie was sitting with her guitar (still pointless, but she was still trying), and it reminded Ellie of their earliest days, when everything felt so strange and exciting, when she was still trying to figure out where she fit in Dina’s life. She rested her chin on the guitar, looked up expectantly at her. 

“Wanna go for a walk?” 

Ellie considered. Three weeks post surgery, she was still slower and less agile than she liked to be, although their activities the previous night had proven that she was clearly getting there. She bit her lip, smiled. Shrugged and nodded. “Yeah.” 

“Robin said she’d watch J. Let’s go.” 

They walked through the woods behind the house, making quiet small talk, mostly about the baby, who was still Ellie’s favorite topic of conversation. (“Everything he does is so funny and cute and perfect,” she’d explain to anybody who’d listen long enough. “He’s just like...think about everything you like about, like, puppies or whatever, and then magnify it by a zillion, because he’s a human puppy.”) Eventually, Ellie started to get tired and lag behind, and Dina grabbed her hand, practically dragging her. “I’ve got something to show you,” she said. “C’mon.”

Finally, they got to what they were looking for: a little clearing in the woods, with a fire pit in the middle, and, curiously, several large, smooth stones resting nearby. Ellie couldn’t make them out, but they appeared to be painted. 

“I found it when I was hiking with JJ once,” Dina explained, leading Ellie in. “Right after you left and we moved here.” 

Ellie was quiet. Anything she was going to say would’ve felt wrong, anyway, and maybe now was the time to shut up and listen for once in her life. 

“I kept asking the universe for a sign, I dunno, that sounds stupid.” She blew her hair away from her face, picking up one of the rocks, handing it to Ellie to examine.  _ Ellie,  _ it said. Ellie smiled.

“It doesn’t,” Ellie said, because she had, too. 

“We found this place and the sun was shining through the trees and it felt like it was a sign that everything was gonna be okay, and like...I just started coming out here to talk to you, I guess?” she handed her another one:  _ Dina.  _ Ellie set the Ellie stone down, then, once she was done examining the Dina stone, set it carefully next to her own. 

“You did?” Ellie sat down, criss-cross applesauce, in the grass. 

“Yeah. At first I yelled at you a lot,” Dina admitted, handing her the third stone:  _ Jesse Joel.  _ Ellie traced her fingers over the letters, then put him between their stones after a moment’s thought--underneath, as though she was building a little rock family tree. 

“You’re allowed,” Ellie said quietly. “You could yell at me now, if you wanted to.”

Dina shook her head. “Once I got all of it out of my system I realized that I wasn’t really mad at you after all.” Handing her another:  _ Jesse.  _ Ellie swallowed hard, but after a moment’s thought, put it slightly above the Ellie and Dina stones. 

“You weren’t?”

“I was mad that you left, but I think I knew it was something you felt like you had to do. Everything was just...everything was so fucked up, and I was mad at that.” Dina was holding the last stone in her hand. Ellie couldn’t read it, but she knew what it said without having to read it. “I was mad that things with Joel were fucked up before he died, I was mad that you were already holding onto all of this shit...I was just…” she started to breathe hard like she was going to cry, and Ellie put a steadying hand on her back. “I was just mad.”

“Yeah,” Ellie agreed. “Me too.”

Finally, Dina handed her the last stone, with Joel’s name on it. Ellie held it, traced the letters, blinked hard. For a moment she wanted to put it in her backpack and take it home with her. Her heart ached with the emptiness of being without him. She closed her eyes, prepared for the horrible onslaught of memory and…

To her surprise, she was met by a more pleasant memory instead. One she’d almost forgotten she’d had, of their very earliest days together, one of her first days outside. They’d fallen asleep somewhere, sheltered by an abandoned building, and she’d woken up to the sound of a thunderstorm. It had freaked her out--she’d never been that close to one before, and the lightning had been so close they could smell it, the thunder rattling the entire building. Joel had barely known her, she’d been just a job at that point still--but he’d taken off his flannel shirt and wrapped it around her, stroked her hair until she fell back to sleep.

“I know I’m crying,” she said once she had enough voice to talk. “I’m crying, I know, but I’m happy? I had...I just remembered something happy?” She gave the letters one last longing trace and then set the Joel stone down in a place of honor, higher even than Jesse, drew her knees up to her chest. Dina crawled over to hold her, rocking her, stroking her hair. “I’m sorry,” she said, because she was. “I’m ruining everything, you tried to do something nice and--I’m happy crying, but I’m crying, I just.” She paused. “I just really fucking miss him.”

“I know.” Dina kissed the side of her head, stroked her hair. “It’s okay to miss him, El.”

Ellie nodded, let herself melt into Dina’s arms. Let herself miss him, just for a moment. “I wasn’t a very good person to him,” she said, after awhile. “I shouldn’t call myself his kid, Tommy was right.”

“ _ Fuck  _ Tommy,” Dina said, her voice full of such righteous indignance that it made Ellie jump a little. “Ellie, I’m pretty fucking sure that he knew that you loved him just as much as he loved you. People have complicated relationships. Parents have complicated relationships with their kids, that doesn’t make them any less their kids. He did the things he did for you because he was your dad. Maybe not in the normal way, but that would be like saying you’re not JJ’s mom, so fuck that.” 

Ellie considered, nodded. Something about it still made her stomach ache, though, and she bit at her cuticles. 

“But I still feel like I shouldn’t be here, y’know? Like...I guess the thing is that yeah, I mean, killing Abby wouldn’t bring Joel back, but also like, it doesn’t really change the fact that I don’t deserve to be here? Cause think about how all these people are suffering just cause I am?”

She half-expected Dina to pull away, but she was surprised to find that she was still clinging tightly to her, maybe even tighter than she had been before. “Can I be selfish?” she asked, and Ellie shrugged, nodded. 

“Maybe you could’ve saved the world and like, that’s not nothing. I get it. I get why you feel like it’s your fault, and I wish I could take that from you. But Ellie.” She reached to tilt Ellie’s face up so that their eyes met, so that it was impossible for Ellie to look away from her. “Your life matters, you know that? Your life, here, matters.”

Ellie blinked. 

“You matter to me and you matter to JJ and you matter to other people but even if there wasn’t a single other person in this stupid town who cared about you, the fact that there’s us two and you make our lives worth living...it’s not nothing, El.” 

Ellie blinked again, trying to process what Dina was saying while at the same time not daring to allow herself to hope that it meant what she thought it did. 

Despite Ellie’s silence, Dina forged on. “I guess what I’m saying is that when you were gone it felt like the sun was never gonna come out again, and I never wanna feel like that ever again, and I know it’s not gonna be easy, but I’m asking you to be mine, and stay with me forever, and I promise I’ll take care of you and we’ll get through all the bad shit together. Okay?”

There were tears rolling down Ellie’s face again, and all she could do was nod. “Forever,” she managed to choke out. “I promise.” 

They sat there tangled together for a long while after that, neither of them talking, enjoying each other’s company and laughing, really laughing, until the sky started to cloud over and they decided it was better to start to head back, making it home with only minutes to spare before it started to pour rain. 

In the house there was a fire in the fireplace and JJ was just waking up from his nap. Ellie went into the kitchen to see if there was tea and Dina went into the bedroom to get him, settling on the couch next to Ellie to feed him. Ellie leaned her head against Dina's shoulder and listened to the rain hammering the windows, realizing that for the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn't want to run. 

The next few weeks passed quietly like that, in the lull of routine. Whenever they could, they would walk out to the clearing, with or without JJ, and they would talk. Mostly about Joel, but sometimes about other things. Anything that felt too hard to say anywhere else often felt much easier there, and the more often they visited, the easier it became all the time. Her nightmares were fewer and further between, and when she did have them, or have flashbacks, she found that she could bounce back. 

Eight weeks post surgery came and took them both by surprise. Their drive back to the field hospital was much different than the first time; both of them telling jokes (Dina: "okay, I've been saving this one for you. Knock knock." 

"who's there?"

"Little old lady."

"Little old lady who?"

"Ellie! I didn't know you knew how to yodel.") and laughing themselves silly, so much happier and lighter than either of them had thought possible then. 

Hospitals--even ones in repurposed elementary schools--still made Ellie nervous, but Dina held her hand the whole time, and by the time Charlie came into the exam room, it had even stopped shaking. 

"Your incision looks good," he said, "And it looks like our self-dissolving stitches actually worked. You did good taking care of yourself." 

"It was all Dina," Ellie insisted. "I'm an idiot." 

Charlie raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. "Well, as long as you're up for it you can resume all your normal activities. Hopefully we never have to see each other again, but it was a pleasure to meet you, Ellie." 

He shook her hand, and then turned to leave, but Dina caught his attention, asked to speak to him in the hall. "Don't move," she instructed Ellie, who sat, puzzled, in the chair while they spoke in low voices in the hall until Dina came back in, smiling in the way she did when she had a secret. 

"Okay," she said, in a strange, bright voice. "Let's go."

Dina was weird all the way back into town, full of barely concealed excited energy. 

"What's going onnnnn," Ellie asked, scooting across the bench seat to sit closer to her. 

"Nothing!" Dina replied, but she was a terrible liar, so, "I have a surprise for you, that's all." 

"A surprise! What is it?" Ellie demanded, and then started trying to guess: ice cream, a puppy, books, a trip into space, a pet giraffe, reanimated dinosaurs, popcorn, new fingers, a new baby made with the power of magic. She was so absorbed in her ridiculous guessing game that it barely registered to her when the truck stopped, and it took her several moments to realize where they were. 

"C'mon," Dina said, leading her out of the truck and toward the barn, but Ellie had already taken off into a run. 

"Horses! Dina, horses!"

Dina followed her into the barn, smiling. "You like them?"

Ellie was stroking the mane of one of the two horses, beaming. "I love them," she said, and found her voice choked with tears. 

Dina came up behind her, wrapped her arms around Ellie's waist. "Do you maybe want to come back here?" she asked tentatively, and then the rest came falling out all in one breath. "I mean, it's okay if you don't, horses are, you know, moveable. Robin said that sometimes places can have more good memories than bad and maybe this place did but you came back here when you needed it and anyway I--"

Ellie turned, pressing her lips to Dina's, her hands tangling easily in her hair. "I wanna," she said. "I hated that I kept having to start over in all these new places. I wanna start over in a place I know. Even when it was hard, this was always my safest place." putting her hand over Dina's heart. 

And so began the work of moving their life back to the farm, a little at a time, although they spent most nights there. It was rough at first, Ellie waking up most of their first few nights with nightmares. 

"Don't leave me," she pleaded after one particularly rough night, but Dina just kissed the top of her head, smoothed her hair back. 

"You're working hard and I am too," she promised. "We got this."

And eventually, as they had at Robin and Scott's, her nightmares abated at the farm, too. If there was nothing else, if everything else in the world was awful, she belonged here with her family; this was her place in the world, and she was allowed to be at peace with that. 

**Author's Note:**

> A small note on appendicitis:  
> Although other presentations are more common, Ellie's presentation is based on my own, so please don't come at me. They didn't just steal my appendix for no reason. I hope.


End file.
